Spring Grants

These projects were funded during our Spring grant cycle, where projects receive more than $5,000 for projects that take between one to three years to complete.

High-Output Parallel Biodiesel Processing System (HOPBPS)

The Biofuels Technology Club (BTC) at UC Berkeley's College of Chemistry has a clear mission: to achieve a zero-waste campus by producing biodiesel from campus dining hall waste cooking oil. Since its founding in 2015, the club has successfully produced over 500 gallons of high-quality biodiesel, which has been tested extensively in the lab and for 12,000 miles in a car. The club's ultimate goal is to power the UC Berkeley campus fleets, closing an important loop within the school's consumption and waste streams. However, the club's current processing setup has limited capacity, preventing it from producing the significant quantities of biodiesel needed to achieve its goal.

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Deployment of Reusables on Campus

Project Description

Cal Zero Waste plans to launch a partnership with FoodWare, a TGIF funded project, to implement a new dishwasher on campus and increase the amount of reusable takeout ware on campus and restaurants. Through FoodWare, the UC Berkeley community will be able to purchase their meals in reusable materials, track CO2 emissions avoided, and the amount of single-use containers saved, which will improve the overall impact of the campus community.

Project Links

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ASUC Sustainable Campus Food System Designathon

Project Description

This designathon aims to empower students to share their voices on decisions about the campus food system, because it should be catered to their needs and values. The Pour Out Pepsi campaign pressures the UC Berkeley administration to end the exclusive pouring rights contract with PepsiCo due to its unsustainable and inequitable practices. There are currently discussions in the UCOP about establishing a UC system-wide exclusive pouring rights contract, likely with PepsiCo or Coca-Cola, demonstrating that they value profit over students. The food and beverage...

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EH&S Strawberry Creek Hydrologic Monitoring Initiative

Project Description

By building upon UCB’s watershed monitoring efforts, we aim to raise awareness of aquatic ecosystem health, enhance accessibility to creek sensor data, and expand UCB’s creek monitoring capabilities. Our focus is to create a surface water monitoring platform that provides access to current and historical surface water monitoring for Strawberry Creek. Our deliverables include an open source web app that enables users to download all available Strawberry Creek surface water monitoring data, graphical data summaries, and text message alerts based on fluctuations in...

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Queer Indigenous Speaker Series

Project Description

Over the 2024-2025 academic year, the Queer Indigenous Speakers Series will explore the intersection of indigeneity and queerness to challenge and expand our concepts around activism, sustainability, identity, and sovereignty. Through a series of talks and workshops, indigenous activists and scholars from the Bay Area and beyond will work with students to explore the historical constructions of our current conceptions around selfhood and nature, and understand how these seemingly disparate categories might be more closely entwined than we think. Ultimately, this...

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SERC NEWT Peaks of the Bay

Project Description

The Peaks of the Bay program’s goal is to introduce and connect the UC Berkeley community to the beautiful mountains of the Bay Area. Within an academic year, SERC NEWT would provide a free and accessible experience to four iconic mountains in the Bay Area, including one overnight trip. Our trips focus on merging fun outdoor movement with environmental justice education and healing, and will be especially catered to those with limited outdoor experiences. Through skilled facilitation, we want to provide students with a safe, enjoyable, and memorable outdoor...

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BIPOC Earth Day Festival: Celebrating 10 Years of SCEC

Project Description

In Spring 2025, it will have been 10 years since the founding of the Students of Color Environmental Collective (SCEC), a campus student organization that has helped pave the way for environmental justice conversations on UC Berkeley’s campus. In celebration of this anniversary and in an effort to honor BIPOC voices and labor in the environmental movement, we intend to host a BIPOC Earth Day Festival. It will take place in Spring 2025 just a few days before Earth Day (likely August 19th, 2025) and will be a half-day outdoor event featuring guest speakers, eco-...

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Island Justice Fellows Program at the Critical Pacific Island Studies Collective

Project Description

The Island Justice Fellows Program at the Critical Pacific Island Studies Collective (CPISC) enables UC Berkeley students to contribute to environmental justice practice, research, and campus community engagement opportunities concerning issues facing Pacific Islander (PI) communities, both residing in the Pacific Island region and in the diaspora in California. This year-long fellowship programs supports a team of graduate and undergraduate students to address multiple gaps on the UC Berkeley campus: (1) the lack of institutional support for...